PostgreSQL

The World’s Most Advanced Open Source Database

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source, ACID compliant object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. It uses an extremely liberal open source license, making it free to use & distribute –unlimited & forever!

History

PostgreSQL (or Postgres) began its life in 1986 as POSTGRES, a research project of the University of California at Berkeley, led by highly influential database researcher Michael Stonebraker.

Who uses PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is everywhere. To illustrate this, we’ve highlighted a handful of the hundreds, if not thousands, of uses of PostgreSQL that touch every person as they lead their normal day-to-day life.

Some Cool Facts

PostgreSQL runs on all major operating systems including many variants of Linux, Windows, Unix, macOS, Solaris, & BSD. It complies with the SQL:2011 standard. See below some of its main characteristics.

Database Size

Unlimited

Table Size

32 TB

Row Size

1.6 TB

Field Size

1 GB

Rows per table

Unlimited

Columns per table

250 – 1,600 (depending on column types)

Indexes per table

Unlimited

PostgreSQL runs on all major operating systems including many variants of Linux, Windows, Unix, macOS, Solaris, & BSD. It complies with the SQL:2011 standard.

PostgreSQL vs MySQL

There are radical differences between PostgreSQL and MySQL. An informed decision must be made after evaluating the differences and trade-offs between the two systems. We’ve provided a summary of similarities and differences of the most commonly evaluated features and abilities between PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Business case for PostgreSQL

We present an analysis based on hard and soft financial factors, as well as risk. Our objective is to look at comparative 5-year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) against other major commercial database systems.

FAQs

What is PostgreSQL? How is it pronounced? What is Postgres?

PostgreSQL is an object-relational database system that has the features of traditional proprietary database systems with next-generation DBMS enhancements. PostgreSQL is free and the complete source code is available.

PostgreSQL development is performed by a team of mostly volunteer developers spread throughout the world and communicating via the Internet. It is a community project and is not controlled by any company. While 2ndQuadrant are very well represented among these volunteer developers, they are by no means a controlling commercial entity, nor is any other company.

Postgres is a widely-used nickname for PostgreSQL. It was the original name of the project at the University of California at Berkeley. For more on this, see PostgreSQL – the story so far. If you find ‘PostgreSQL’ hard to pronounce, call it ‘Postgres’ instead.

#2

Who controls PostgreSQL?

If you are looking for a PostgreSQL gatekeeper, central committee, or controlling company, give up — there isn’t one. The project is directed by the community of developers and users, which anyone can join and have their contributions judged purely on merit.

#3

What is the licence of PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is distributed under a licence similar to BSD and MIT. It allows users to do anything they want with the code, including reselling binaries without the source code. The only restriction is that you not hold the original developers legally liable for problems with the software (although this is, of course, separate from any agreement that you might make with 2ndQuadrant). There is also the requirement that this copyright appear in all copies of the software.

#4

What platforms does PostgreSQL support

In general, any modern Unix-compatible platform such as Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD can run PostgreSQL, as can Microsoft Windows. PostgreSQL does not rely on the behaviour of any particular architecture, so it can almost be taken for granted that any architecture that is supported by these Operating systems is supported by PostgreSQL.

#5

What drivers are available for PostgreSQL for my preferred programming environment?

The PostgreSQL install includes only the C and embedded C interfaces. While there is a huge number of drivers that target various different programming environments, all other interfaces are independent projects that are separately distributed; This allows them to have their own release schedule and development teams.

Some programming languages like PHP include an interface to PostgreSQL. Interfaces for languages/environments like Python, Perl, .Net, JDBC and many others are available.

#6

Does PostgreSQL have a GUI admin tool?

There are a large number of GUI Tools that are available for PostgreSQL from both proprietary and open source developers. 2ndQuadrant officially support, and indeed employ an active contributor to, the popular open source pgAdminIII desktop application. phpPgAdmin is another popular tool, which is web-based.